Exercises for Altitude Sickness

My experience in my recent journey to Everest Base Camp (5200 masl) in Nepal is that I had my face, particularly around the eyes swelling when I got up after a night (with very little sleep) on the Base camp. I did one hour of Pranayam, anulom bilom combined with head and hands exercise, the swelling was significantly reduced and I felt fresh and mild headache during night was also gone.

I climbed Mt. Killamanjaro with my husband last year, and did a lot of research about altitude sickness before going. In our group was a doctor who was also up-to-date on the latest findings. I'm also a yoga teacher, and am very enthusiastic about pranayama for it's affects on the mind and concentration.

However, There is hardly anything that anyone can do to prevent altitude sickness, and the only real treatment is to return to a lower elevation. There is very little real research on how altitude sickenss actually comes about, and what combination of factors causes some people to experience problems and others no worries. And sometimes people will do OK on one trip and feel miserable the next.

The only proven technique is to acclimatize yourself before you go, and the only way to do that is to spend time at higher altitudes - going up and coming down in the lead up to your trip. In the case of Killi, people who take the short routes up and down the mountain have more than a 50% chance of not making it do to altitude sickness. The 9-day route that we took has about an 80% success rate. The difference is simply time.

Mountaineers climb high and sleep low in steps. Only with time will the body adjust to the different levels of oxygen per square inch. I'm a strong advocate of pranayama, but I truly don't believe that in this case it will make a difference b/c you need time at altitude for your body to adjust. Pranayama would be a quick fix, and in this case it wouldn't work. You can't force your body to make adjustments on a cellular level without prescription medication.

Another factor to consider is that if someone has strong headaches or more severe symptoms like vomiting, total loss of appetite - all things that don't seem to get better with time - the only thing to do is to go down. When people travel by air to high elevations (I've also been to Quito, Ecuador and experienced very mild altitude sickness), they often have little choice but to simply rest. People visiting these places should be encouraged to make the first day a rest day above all other advice.

I appreciate that yoga and pranayama do help people in a lot of situations, but I have to strongly disagree with the information provided in this article. Altitude sickness is serious and does kill many people each year, all things that could have been prevented if the person simply went lower. Suggesting that anything might cause relief when it isn't proven, in this case, could be a grave liability.

However, without illness, moving about at altitude is very difficult and feels extremely laborious. I agree with Ana that focusing on the breath while hiking is very beneficial, but not to alleviate altitude sickness. It helps immensely just to get through what feels like the most difficult physical challenge of your life.

Another symptom of altitude sickness not mentioned in the article is loss of appetite. I had to laugh at even the notion that you could overeat at altitude. We were encouraged to eat heartily while on the mountain, and we joked that we were going to come back fatter than we were before the start of the climb. And indeed, I was very grateful for the heat that my digestion created while I slept. It can be quite cold at altitude, even at locations along the equator.

As yoga professionals, we need to know when to say that yoga doesn't always provide the answers. We'll all be a more credible lot when we highlight the ways in which yoga does truly help. Most of the time, our advice about yoga wouldn't have the potential to literally kill someone, but in this case - a more carefully considered response would be more prudent.

This has to be explained medidcally to make it plausible. No oxygen means no oxygen no matter how much kapalabahti one does. Acclimating makes sense and that takes time. Flying into Lhasa from Beijing, for example, then going directly to Mt. Everest with a pranayama routine is quite simply, insane.